Spiritual Growth

The Gift of Forgiveness by C. Stanley

Charles Stanley, one of the most influential spiritual leaders of our day, shares the key to personal and even world peace in The Gift of Forgiveness. as Stanley points out that no sin is so shockingly evil it blocks God’s forgiveness nor so trivial it negates the need for God’s mercy, he shares the specifics of how to go about receiving and giving forgiveness.

The Gift of Forgiveness reflects the heart of Stanley’s teaching ministry. In this markedly helpful book, Stanley addresses such questions as how to practise a life of forgiveness in all your relationships and how to make forgiveness an ongoing, practical experience in your life.

About the author: Dr. Charles F. Stanley is the senior pastor of First Baptist Church Atlanta, founder of In Touch Ministries, and a New York Times best-selling author who has written more than fifty books, and has sold more than nine million copies. He demonstrates a keen awareness of people’s needs and provides Christ-centered, biblically-based principles for everyday life.

What’s So Amazing About Grace? by Phillip Yancy

In 1987, an IRA bomb buried Gordon Wilson and his twenty-year-old daughter beneath five feet of rubble. Gordon alone survived. And forgave. He said of the bombers, “I have lost my daughter, but I bear no grudge. . . . I shall pray, tonight and every night, that God will forgive them.”His words caught the media’s ear–and out of one man’s grief, the world got a glimpse of grace.Grace is the church’s great distinctive. It’s the one thing the world cannot duplicate, and the one thing it craves above all else–for only grace can bring hope and transformation to a jaded world.In What’s So Amazing About Grace? award-winning author Philip Yancey explores grace at street level. If grace is God’s love for the undeserving, he asks, then what does it look like in action? And if Christians are its sole dispensers, then how are we doing at lavishing grace on a world that knows far more of cruelty and unforgiveness than it does of mercy?

About the author: Philip Yancey is an American Christian author. Fourteen million copies of his books have been sold worldwide, making him one of the best-selling evangelical Christian authors. Two of his books have won the ECPA’s Christian Book of the Year Award: The Jesus I Never Knew in 1996, and What’s So Amazing About Grace? in 1998.

Heaven Is For Real by Todd Burpo and Lynn Vincent

Is heaven real? For Todd Burpo, a pastor in the tiny town of Imperial, Neb., the answer was a very clear “yes.” But when his 3-year-old son said he experienced it first hand, Todd found himself wondering if it was true.

After 3-yr-old Colton pulled through an emergency surgery for an appendicitis, he tarted talking about heaven, as if he had been there.

“Colton’s story is bound to offend some people”, says Pastor Todd Burpo, “given different opinions and interpretations about what heaven is like, Todd said, and he was skeptical at first, too. But after Colton recounted so many details about heaven and about his own family’s life—like the fact that his parents lost a child before he was born, something they never told him—Todd was certain that his son really experienced it.”

Todd Burpo is the author of Heaven is for Real, a short book about Colton’s extraordinary experience with heaven.

About the author: Todd Burpo is the pastor of Crossroads Wesleyan Church in Imperial, Nebraska (Population: 1,762) where his sermons are broadcast locally every Sunday via the local radio station. He volunteers at Chase County Public Schools as wrestling coach for Junior high school students, as well as serving as a member of the school board. In emergencies Todd can be found working shoulder-to-shoulder with the Imperial Volunteer Fire Department as a fire fighter. He is also the chaplain for the Nebraska State Volunteer Firefighter’s Association. To support his family, Todd also operates a company called Overhead Door Specialists. Todd graduated from Oklahoma Wesleyan University in 1991 summa cum laude with a BA in Theology. He was ordained in 1994.

The Case For Faith by Lee Strobel

Was God telling the truth when he said, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart”? In his #1 bestseller The Case for Christ, Lee Strobel examined the claims of Christ, reaching the hard-won verdict that Jesus is God’s unique son. In The Case for Faith, Strobel turns his skills to the most persistent emotional objections to belief—the eight “heart barriers” to faith. This Gold Medallion-winning book is for those who may be feeling attracted to Jesus but who are faced with difficult questions standing squarely in their path. For Christians, it will deepen their convictions and give them fresh confidence in discussing Christianity with even their most skeptical friends.

About the author: Lee Patrick Strobel is an American Christian author, journalist, apologist and pastor. He has written several books, including four which received ECPA Christian Book Awards (1994, 1999, 2001, 2005) and a series which addresses challenges to a Biblically inerrant view of Christianity. Strobel also hosted a television program called Faith Under Fire on PAX TV, and runs a video apologetics web site. Strobel has been interviewed on numerous national television programs, including ABC’s 20/20, Fox News, and CNN.